


Breath of Time

by Tangerine



Category: X-Force (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Homophobic Language, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-07-10
Updated: 2000-07-10
Packaged: 2019-03-24 22:09:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13820445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tangerine/pseuds/Tangerine





	Breath of Time

It's that sound you hear when the world is silent, when nothing moves and everything is just _waiting_. It sits on the precipice of something new but isn't quite willing to let go of what once was. A gasp of air through dry and parted lips that reminds me of life and just how precious it is. 

It's that hollow echo inside the well of a chest, the after-beat of a heart that's slowed but not stopped, the whisper of a breath just freed from expanded lungs. It stays in the pit of your ear, speaking of pleasures that words cannot begin to describe. It is a message that pierces your breast and marks you for life. 

It's the movement of his body as he shifts with a fluid motion, legs and arms gliding to greet in different patterns. It touches you because you lie so close to him, nestled like a child in the crux between body and arm. His fingers inscribe his possession of your soul in the small of your back and you know you are his completely. 

It's all of this that keeps me awake, that causes me to forego sleep to view the wonder of him and his existence. In life, he's a warrior with a warrior's spirit, always fighting, always trying to break his way into a world that does everything in its power to keep him humble. In sleep, he's calm, at rest but not at peace. His demons are ones that have no face, ones that I have never seen and cannot name, but they haunt him. 

I can't look at his face when he sleeps because the true scope of his suffering comes into view, but I listen to him and focus on things that I know, that I feel and see with my own eyes. His secrets are horrors I've never been told, so I can't watch him or I begin to wonder just why his breath catches in his throat and he cries out muted sounds of anguish. 

Instead, I think of things I can control. I think of us in the future, of him and I still together, still in love, still fond of each other and still learning new things. Before him, when it was just my soul in a pool of panic and hate, I didn't have a future, I didn't have a concept of time. I merely existed in the moment. 

We're still young, still children in the eyes of those who think we should fear what we have made together, but he and I were never allowed the luxury of childhood. We were never allowed just to _be_. Now, lying in his arms, that's exactly what I'm doing. 

Our love is an all encompassing breath of life, a sweep of joy over a clouded field of hate. Hate me, hate him, hate us together, fists pummel us and teeth gnash us and eyes accuse us. But with him at my side, none of this matters. With him at my side, I can ignore it. 

Gay rights? Murder the fuckers. Fags in love? I think I might vomit. And queer, queer means they're strange. Wrong. Abominations. But not special. Not unique. And not just a little bit different. A lot different. So that gives you the right to dictate to me why holding his hand is going to send me to hell. 

That first look, that instant where our eyes met and something new was born, it is a memory that has been burned behind my eyes. The mouth in its line, a gaze so serious beneath red brows, the hands clenched at his sides while his world bent and broke. He was never supposed to love me, and there's not a day goes by that I don't thank him for being so weak, for failing himself so completely that he let me cause him such beautiful pain. 

And those years that followed when no one knew what to think, not us, not them. Those whispers, are they, aren't they. They're just friends. Best friends. Soulmates. See how they smile, see how they're happy together? Must be fucking. Must be. But we were friends first. 

That moment, that slice of time when the confession came, it broke my world and reformed it all at once, a puzzle that he built with his hands. Time, it was only seconds, but it was so close to forever. Eternity settled on us, sewed us together and gave us our lives. 

So when he wakes to find me pressed to his heart, a look in my eyes that only resembles an animal before it's struck by a car, the fingers glide up my back and tangle in my hair. But we don't move beyond that. We just lie there and think. 

We think of our lives. Will we have a house or an apartment? One or the other, and it will be home. Pets? No, but maybe a plant or two. A cactus in a clay jar that sits by the window and never changes. Cars? We have one. If that one fails, we get another one. Jobs? I'll get a common, boring one while he'll stumble into something bizarre. And when it gets to be too much, when I think I just can't take the routine of life anymore, he'll remind me why it is we fought so hard to be here, why we turned the other cheek and bore the weight of hate on our backs. 

And when we're old and wrinkled and wise, we'll sit back and remember with fondness how we were when we were young, the things we said we'd do but didn't, the promises we forgot but never broke, the whispers we shared when we still cared what the world thought, when we hadn't yet learned how little those opinions mattered. 

And when we die, it won't be from violence. Or from hate. Or from ignorance, arrogance, all of the above. It will be from time. A lifetime of love shared together, and we won't go with fear in our hearts. We'll go with joy. I'll know because I'll have died happy and in your arms, like I lie here now, dreaming of our future and not afraid of our end. And I'll not be afraid because I'll know we had our breath of time together.


End file.
